Our sea urchin is organic, minimally processed, and wild caught in Santa Barbara, CA. Uni, the Japanese term for sea urchin roe, is buttery in texture and tastes sweet and briny. Because their shells are covered in poisonous spines, sea urchins look more menacing than the tasty delicacy that they are. Inside every urchin are five chambers filled with delicious, sweet roe. Tender and slightly yielding, the roe melts on the tongue, and presents an essence of the ocean.
Santa Barbara provides the most highly sought after uni in the world. The confluence of warm
and cold waters off the Channel Islands makes the area an ideal location to dive and harvest sea urchin. At the infamous Tsukiji fish market just outside of Tokyo, Santa Barbara uni continually brings one of the highest auction prices.
The sea urchins are hand harvested by our divers from the ocean around the Channel Islands off of Santa Barbara and then loaded onto boats.
From the boats, the live sea urchin is immediately delivered to Ocean Queen for processing.
The sea urchin shells are cracked open one at a time by hand, using a spade-like tool with sharp triangular blades that open when the handle is squeezed. The blades break the shell in half, revealing the five chambers filled with the undamaged tantalizing roe. The tender roe is carefully scooped out of the shell and placed in perforated plastic trays. These trays are then dipped in salt water, where each piece of roe is cautiously washed by hand to remove any excess debris.
Color is imperative to grading. Here at Ocean Queen, we prefer a bright orange color with a subtle yellow hue. We look for a firm texture with no moisture on top. Ocean Queen offers trays graded A+ to B-.
Our specialized sea urchin packers carefully choose the roe suitable for the appropriate grades. Each piece of roe is gently placed one by one in the traditional wooden trays with our blue stickers written in Japanese "Nagata's Fresh Sea Urchin."
Once the trays are filled, we immediately deliver our product to sushi and fine dining restaurants, as well as fish markets in surrounding cities. Delivery is always free.
We reserve various trays for our domestic and international customers. For these customers, we prefer to pack our uni in plastic portion trays to ensure an undamaged product upon arrival.
